events

She swooshes onto the stage at SF Yoshi’s like some big blond beautiful dream-come-true. And then, song by song, note by note, seductive phrasing by breathless swoon, Eliane Elias steals your heart away. Last night’s seduction was, at times, almost unbearable, as the Brazilian pianist/chanteuse slowly but surely won over her initially resistant audience. But after about a dozen songs, in both her clipped English that sets you up and sensuous Portuguese that sends you flying, Elias had the Yoshi’s crowd in the palm of her hand – and up on their feet – by the time the evening was done.

Don’t miss her tonight. Luckily for all of us, Yoshi’s has added a second show at 10 p.m. Get there!

Elias’ career spans a marvelous and gaping arch, from her teenaged beginnings in Sao Paulo to the global stature she enjoys nearly three decades later, a sweep as graceful and as breathtaking as the samba tones embedded in her music. With her smart jazz-piano stylings and a power-packed voice that can delight and mesmerize her listeners, Elias brought her Bossa Nova stories to San Francisco Tuesday for the first of a two-night stand at Yoshi’s.

She was by turns extremely hot and awfully cool on Tuesday, leading her talented and two-thirds Brazilian trio through a 90-minute flight to her beloved Brazil, where Elias first picked up her chops with singer/songwriter Toquinho and the legendary poet Vinicius de Moraes before heading for New York in 1981. Tucked tightly into a strapless black mini-dress with black glovelettes, Elias jumped in jammin’ and never stopped. Tossing her head back and forth like a 15-year-old in love with some wonderful guy, she transported the entire room back to the late Fifties, back to Rio de Janeiro where she cut her teeth on Bossa Nova with the very people who had spawned it.

She told stories between songs (about the time she looked up from her piano to see the god himself – Antonio Carlos Jobim – sitting at a table in the club she was playing as a young musician). She took soaring solos on classics like So Danca Samba, leaning into her Steinway with pure abandon and having way too much fun for one woman to have. And then she down-shifted, caressing every ounce of feeling she could from ballads like They Can’t Take That Away From Me. Her versions of Tangerine and the Girl from Ipanema were even more beautiful and moving than the ones I heard her do back at Iridium Jazz Club 15 years ago.

Sony has a couple of events going on in PlayStationland today. At 11 a.m. to noon, Jerry Pritchard, the associated producer for Warner Bros. Games, will talk about the upcoming downloadable titleWatchmen: The End is Nigh. The game is going up on Thursday. You can read our preview of the game here.

The event will take place anytime between 7 to 9 p.m. at multiple instances in the Gamers Lounge. (Sorry folks, can’t be anymore specific.) If I were there, I’d ask Seth Killian for some Street Fighter IV tips. And P.S. wear your Dan Saikyo shirt to the Home event for a prize.

Note: I’m posting this on Gieson’s behalf due to technical difficulties.

Well, the Madden launch is only a couple of hours away. For folks who need to get the game day of launch, there’s a couple of shops around the Bay Area holding midnight launches. The events will vary. Some will have Madden tournaments; others will have food and drinks along with some prizes.

Game Crazies around the Bay Area are holding tournaments with the winners having the honor of purchasing the game first. The attendees will also have a chance to win AMEX gift cards that range from $500 to $1,000. But the biggest prize of all is the Super Bowl tickets the company is giving away in a nationwide drawing.

Here are area Game Crazy stores where you can celebrate your “Maddenoliday”

GAME CRAZY – 4383 CLAYTON RD, CONCORD, CA 94521

GAME CRAZY – 2931 HARBOR ST STE A, PITTSBURG, CA 94565

GAME CRAZY – 3525 MAC ARTHUR BLVD, OAKLAND, CA 94619

GAME CRAZY – 832 SOUTHAMPTON RD, BENICIA, CA 94510

GAME CRAZY – 20923 REDWOOD RD, CASTRO VALLEY, CA 94546

GAME CRAZY – 6660 LONE TREE WAY STE 7, BRENTWOOD, CA

I’ll probably stop by my neighborhood GameStop in downtown Berkeley. Store manager Sam Fugate is working with Bowzer’s Pizza a few blocks down to hold a Madden tournament and a couple of prizes. He says the Madden launches have died down a bit for him with the game’s peak in Berkeley being around Madden NFL 05 and Madden NFL 06.

“It goes with the mood people have about Madden,” he said.

If you want go, you can check out the Madden NFL 09 launch at 2200 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley.

But if you’re in the East Bay and if you’re a Raider fan, there’s only one place to go and that’s the GameStop off of Hegenberger Road. Fugate said that hundreds of people lineup to this GameStop next to a Wal-Mart. But it isn’t the deals that draw them. A couple of doors down from this store is a Raider Image and the two work in conjunction trying to put on a show for fans. During different years, there are Raiderette signings and even some playes drop by, according to Fugate.

With that said, expect a few hundred people. The store’s address is 8460 Edgewater Dr # B, Oakland, CA.